patterns, practices, and rituals 002
subscribe to @homeishowiheal on youtube for visual meditations on home.
mar 31, 2025. 7:43a. i wish i could remember exactly the last questions my therapist asked me during one of our final sessions. i only remember how it made me feel, and how i responded.
i remember feeling like the questions came out of nowhere, and somehow they ended up leading me to the origins of my practice of memory-keeping through homemaking. the questions were something like, what kind of home are you creating for the younger you? what do you want your home to be to your future child?
i looked around the apartment, that i shared with my partner in the bronx, and took inventory of every piece of furniture and decor sourced over time and with intention — the dresser chest we packed into the back of the car and drove from a vintage shop upstate, the candle stick holders i found at one of my favorite thrift stores in the city, the photography we purchased during one of our trips abroad.
all of it told the story of our love, both individually and collectively. i had been creating a sacred dwelling, over the course of two years, held together by the surrounding walls. all of these pieces were pieces of us, and the way we loved, danced, and lived among them is what made this place a home.
that question was a portal to my inner child who questioned where home was because the structure changed so often. who began to collect the remnants of her childhood in a shoe box, to protect the memories that would become her home. my answer to the questions were a desire for my home to be evidenced by love in the beauty of building over time, in the things we take care of, in the things we sometimes had to patiently wait for, and the story each of these things has about someone who loved them.
april 5, 2025. 9:15a. i started intermittent fasting at the end of march. prior to i didn’t know much about it, and still don’t really, but mainly thought it was a superficial diet fad. the emergence into spring, always inspires me to find balance and break the hold of winter at last, and so when i happened to hear some intriguing introspection from someone who had been intermittent fasting it got my attention.
it’s been about two weeks and very quickly i have felt a shift in my appreciation for how i wake up and end my day. i break my fast around noon and begin again at 8pm. it’s called my attention to how i spend my mornings. i’m now slowing down to ensure i drink my water, followed by a cup of tea, and have been grateful to still have the energy for movement. i take my time to thoughtfully consider how i want to break my fast and savor each bite with more gratitude.
apr 5, 2025. 11:16a. it’s usually in those small moments while cooking or using my hands that i recall a moment that’s been quietly tucked away. it comes flooding in through my senses, the memory of the colors becomes so vivid, and the feelings comes rushing back. this time it was while making orange juice. i remembered that one of my earliest memory of my grandparent’s home — that of my father’s parents — in illinois, was seeing the door being opened to receive milk and orange juice deliveries.
the shape of the liter glass i’m using now is reminiscent of the glass bottles that use to arrive. it was a home i spent weekends and the occasional holiday in mostly as a toddler. there was always a box of girl scout thin mint cookies in the fridge.
apr 5, 2025. 5:28p. had our first day in the yard of the season, cleaning up the leaves that refused to decay over the winter. winslow and sage sniffed and occasionally wrestled, while my wife and i did a choreography of leaf-blowing and raking. it felt good to bend my knees and elbows to the earth and back up to the sky, and to feel the air in my lungs. it was overcast and a little drizzly, which made for the perfect balm for tending to the yard for a few hours.
i felt the realization of being a homeowner during those hours, doing the labor that my house will require of me for years to come. i learned that mulch holds moisture, so we’ll need to update the landscaping surrounding the foundation of the house. it got me excited for what will be a season filled of new blooms, and moments spent tending to this plot of earth and what emerges.
citations
“LaTonya Yvette and Rachel Cargle on Reclaiming Rituals of Home,” Atmos
»you know, you don’t make a home once. it’s daily practice. i think at some point we recognize that home is the headquarters for our shared love, our shared celebration.«
»…by creating space for the ancestors in our home, we also are trying to move the spirit of these people, whether they’re here or not around us. That, too, is an act of community. That, too, is an act of care.«
Jamaica Kincaid, Homemaking — A Perfect House, and Its Memories, New Yorker, October 16, 1995
»a house has a physical definition; a home has a spiritual one. my house i can easily describe: it is made of wood (douglas-fir beams, red-cedar shingles), and it contains four bedrooms, a sleeping porch, two and a half baths, a kitchen that flows into a large area where we eat our meals, a living room, a sunroom, a room over the garage, where my husband works, and another room, across from the kitchen, where i work. That is my house.
my home cannot be described so easily; many, many things make up my home.«